Have you bought everything? No? Then what are you waiting for?
You've got everything? Excellent. Let's start warmin' up.
First of all, lemme inform you that I can't possibly explain everything to you unless I'm there by your side. So if you haven't got those manuals like I said, start praying.
OK, let's start by opening the casing. Check everything is intact. If you're like an electric eel, ground yourself by touching a conductor, like metal or your dog (if you chose the latter, get ready to buy a new dog). You can skip this if you want, but there's no point taking the risk, isn't it?
Now, make sure the power ain't connected or your family is gonna miss you. Set the jumpers on your motherboard and everything else. Then connect those electric cables and stuff in the casing to your motherboard, like it says in the manual. Install your CPU on the board. There's only one way it can go in. If not, you're in BIG trouble, man.
The RAM goes into the slots in only one orientation as well. You gotta press them in at a 45° angle and then snap them back into a vertical position. Done?
Next, the sound card, video card, etc. Remove the spare brackets on the casing. After you've finished, align the connectors with the appropriate slots. Easy now. This is as delicate a job as trying to dock a supply ship to the Mir station. Don't try stuffing a 16-bit sound card in a PCI slot! It won't fit, much less work! And don't screw the brackets on the cards to the casing yet.
Fit your drives on the appropriate braces in the casing and screw them firmly (but not too tightly) into place. Connect them to the electric cables and the data cables goes onto the controllers. Make sure the red stripe on the data cable is aligned with pin 1 on both your drives and controllers. And don't put the hard disk upside-down or in some funny orientation. It won't work.
The last thing is to screw the risers (those are the screws with holes in their heads) to the casing and the spacers (those white colour plastic stuff) to the motherboard. Wait, don't put the motherboard into the casing yet. When you've tested your computer and it works (it won't the first time, honest!), then screw everything on.
That's it! It's ready for the first test. Connect your monitor to your video card and those electric cables to the power socket. Take a deep breath and turn on your computer. Do you hear a beeping sound? Did anything turn up on the screen? No? Oops.
Scan this troubleshooting checklist.
If you've done everything, chances are something is not working. Take it back to the shop to change.
If your computer is working now, you can let out that deep breath (if you're still there), leap into the air, do a dozen cartwheels, cry tears of joy, give yourself a pat on the back and a round of applause, shout "Hah!" scornfully at the top of your voice at those PC makers.
